--- Quote from: Shalamar on February 14, 2013, 01:07:06 PM ---I have a work friend who was on call once, and he got a work call while he was at the movies. His response was "I'll call you back later." That did NOT go over well with the bosses. To this day, he still doesn't really understand what he did wrong - "I was at the MOVIES! What was I supposed to do?"

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Perhaps ... not go to the movies while you are on call?

This happened to a friend. The place they work at has an emergency phone which is part of an automated system, so if you get a text on the phone, it's because a problem has already happened, you are being notified that you need to follow procedures to fix it. There are two systems that send texts to the phone so in case one fails, the other will send a text. Each of the people that works there is scheduled to take the phone for a week, then to hand it to the next person on the schedule.

Huge problem is detected in system phone is connected to and phone sends a text through the automated system. The other system is people, and they never bother to send a text. Unfortunately the person who has the phone has let the battery die and they never get the text so the problem does not get fixed for hours. Of course, it wouldn't have mattered if they had gotten the text because they had left the phone at home while they went for an overnight visit to their romantic interest, so they wouldn't have been able to take care of it anyway. And they don't understand why it's such a big deal anyway.

Shalamar:
Oh, Lordy. :o. That sounds like a perfect storm of screw-ups.

mmswm:
My father once had to deal with a situation that could have been PD if the big guys hadn't had a sense of humor about it. He worked for a major US telephone company (he's retired now), and the group he worked with was the end of the line for tech support. A problem ticket had to go through several layers of tech support before it got to them, and when they got it, they had to fix it, no matter how long it took. Some of these tickets took years of research and working with manufacturers and with the research labs.

So, there's a problem in a major switching office that supports a portion of a major city that's home to many, many tourist venues. This problem has the potential to cause a catastrophic outage. This is considered serious enough that when all the lower levels of tech support failed to fix the problem, the CEO found it reasonable to send his personal driver to my father's office, drive him to the airport and put him on his personal private jet and fly him to the major city, where he'd hired another limo driver to drive him straight to the office.

My father gets there, does a few basic trouble shooting things, only to discover that an important piece of equipment was unplugged. That was it. They plugged the piece of equipment back in, rebooted a few systems and the problem was solved. If the CEO didn't have a sense of humor about it, several heads could have rolled, as the expense of sending my father there via private jet wasn't trivial.

marcel:

--- Quote from: TurtleDove on February 14, 2013, 01:57:12 PM ---My boss told me this tale that happened about 15 years ago. The company interviewed for a new receptionist, and the president decided who he wanted to hire and called the applicant to offer the job. Everyone was surprised to see a different applicant at the reception desk the next week - apparently the president had mixed up which resume went with which person and had offered the job to the wrong applicant. Oh well, we'll see how this works out, was the decision. Fast forward a few months. The receptionist wasn't particularly well liked, but she wasn't completely incompetent either. Things were okay. There was a conferenc in New Orleans and the president, vice president and for some reason the receptionist flew to the conference and attended the first day. The second day, the president, vice president and receptionist attended the morning session and then parted ways for lunch. The receptionist was never heard from again. Like, never. She was not on the plane home the following day. She never showed up for work or collected her belongings. No one ever called looking for her. Nothing. She just vanished. I asked my boss why they didn't follow up or report her as missing. He said they just didn't really think about it. That seriously blows my mind! I really wonder what happened. I am going on a trip to New Orleans with my boss in a few months and I am a little concerned that I might disappear too! :)

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That reminds me of when I was interning on a container vessel. One day we were docked in Bordeaux and our (Philipinian) cook took a trip into town for the evening.

By the time we were ready to depart, he still had not returned to the ship. In the end, we had to leave without him. Our agent did check with hospitals and police and everything, but nobody ever found out what had happened to them.

We had no idea whether he decided to stay in France illegaly or if something more sinister had happened to him, and I still consider this one of the strangest things I ever encounbtered profesionaly.

VorFemme:

--- Quote from: mmswm on February 16, 2013, 11:35:34 AM ---My father once had to deal with a situation that could have been PD if the big guys hadn't had a sense of humor about it. He worked for a major US telephone company (he's retired now), and the group he worked with was the end of the line for tech support. A problem ticket had to go through several layers of tech support before it got to them, and when they got it, they had to fix it, no matter how long it took. Some of these tickets took years of research and working with manufacturers and with the research labs.

So, there's a problem in a major switching office that supports a portion of a major city that's home to many, many tourist venues. This problem has the potential to cause a catastrophic outage. This is considered serious enough that when all the lower levels of tech support failed to fix the problem, the CEO found it reasonable to send his personal driver to my father's office, drive him to the airport and put him on his personal private jet and fly him to the major city, where he'd hired another limo driver to drive him straight to the office.

My father gets there, does a few basic trouble shooting things, only to discover that an important piece of equipment was unplugged. That was it. They plugged the piece of equipment back in, rebooted a few systems and the problem was solved. If the CEO didn't have a sense of humor about it, several heads could have rolled, as the expense of sending my father there via private jet wasn't trivial.

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Back when computerized ordering systems were in their toddlerhood (over twenty years ago) - VorGuy worked for a guy who was starting up a computer programming business and that was one of his projects. The system involved a central offfice that took orders over the phone - then sent the order to the closest restaurant to you for cooking & delivery. Home computers were available - but not common yet.

One store kept having trouble with their system - so VorGuy hopped in his car and drove for several hours to get there.....to find that the printer (fax machine style with a roll of paper instead of sheets of paper) had been moved for cleaning the day before and unplugged from the computer.....it had power, so when they checked "is it plugged in?" the answer was yes.